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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Lonergan, Authenticity, and Plato's Cave

If you have not yet discovered Jonathan Bernier's new blog "Critical Realism and the New Testament" here is your chance. Jonathan's blog relates his expertise in New Testament studies to his fascination with mathematician, priest, philosopher, and theologian, Bernard Lonergan. In his latest post, he wonders if Plato's cave allegory might give us a better way into the notion of "authenticity" in New Testament studies.

Bernier writes, "Thus we can see that the criteria did not fail because they did not measure up to the task for which they were formulated but because more fundamentally that task did not measure up to intelligence or reason." Against Chris Keith (who has published on this topic more than anyone else), I think that I agree with Bernier on this point. Chris has taken the line first put forward by Morna Hooker: the traditional authenticity criteria were not invented to authenticate historical material. But (and this is my counter point) researchers develop new tools all the time without a full view to their range of application. If we are to criticize the criteria for authenticity, we must do so on two levels: (1) our notion of "authenticity" carries baggage of false assumptions about what historians do with data and facts; (2) the individual criteria - judged each upon their own logic and output - often create more problems than they solve.

Perhaps once Chris has returned from his holiday, we can revisit this topic.

37 comments:

I can't believe I'm interrupting my vacation for this. :) It might be good to have a fuller discussion later, but I'll offer some brief thoughts now, especially since this is dragging onto the blog a debate that Anthony and I have been carrying on for years. Overall, however, this is a slightly confusing post to me because my criticism has been precisely of the variety that you outline here in (1), as I've argued that the type of "authenticity" that the criteria seek is not available to historians and thus historians must proceed in a different manner that doesn't assume it is available.

Also, I'm not sure that you, Dr. Le Donne, can actually claim Dr. Bernier here on your side *against* me. If I understand him correctly, his point is that the criteria are in even worse shape than I said. The only bone I'd pick with Dr. Bernier is that I think he may have set up a false choice between the criteria's failure to function on epistemological grounds and failure to function on practical grounds. He might not say it like this, but I'd say he's just observing one further reason why they couldn't deliver. (I'll add, too, that I don't think that my work, Schroeter's work, or Allison's, is devoid of the epistemological issues, though we have not perhaps focused on them in the manner in which Bernier is.) Regardless, I don't see anywhere where Dr. Bernier has said that he thinks the criteria can be refashioned. Perhaps he does think that, but he ends his post saying that the point of his discussion is that it "obviat[es] all the more the criteria." I may be misreading him but, again, I think that his point is that they're even more shipwrecked than some of us have claimed.

Finally, it probably bears saying once more that I'm not against people repurposing the criteria of authenticity. I don't want to do it, but if that's what someone wants to do, so be it. But we shouldn't pretend like this is still the historical Jesus discussion if we've refashioned the tools to find something other than the historical Jesus, such as an "earlier state of the tradition." I think this has to be recognized--the criteria may indeed help people recover an earlier state of the tradition, but this is tradition-criticism, not historical Jesus studies. I can prove (at least to my own satisfaction) that Mark's Gospel is usually an earlier state of the tradition than Luke's Gospel. But I've not thereby proven that Mark is closer to the historical Jesus in any way except chronological. In other words, the question of whether this is an earlier stage of historical accuracy or earlier stage of historical inaccuracy has yet to be determined, and furthermore this is precisely the issue that Hooker was addressing. Thus, the criteria may help get to an earlier state of the tradition, but that in an of itself doesn't solve anything about the historical Jesus. And again, it's worth noting that this is not what they were designed to do *in historical Jesus studies*. Bultmann actually developed a version of the criterion of dissimilarity to reconstruct an earlier state of the tradition, but then Kaesemann, Fuller, and Perrin used it in order to bypass ecclesiastical interpretation and reach the historical Jesus, not an earlier state of the tradition. That is, in historical Jesus research, they were designed to cut through interpretation and reach objective authenticity. This is what I think they fail to do. I think I'll take some comfort in knowing that all three of us agree that they can't do this, regardless of our differing nuances after that.

Hi, Chris. Thank you for your response. I think the "false choice" is a result of poor wording on my part. I do indeed hold that the criteria fail on practical grounds. I would add however that they could never have succeeded, because they were predicated upon a defective understanding of the nature of the gospels.

The operative, if unspoken, supposition underlying the criteria of authenticity is that the gospels contain events of Jesus' life, some of which are real events, some are which are not. The criteria were calculated to determine which events are real and which are not. I say simply that this fundamentally misapprehends the gospels. The gospels consist not of events but rather, as has been recently stressed by yourself, Anthony, Rafael Rodriguez, etc., interpretations of Jesus' life. Our own historiographical efforts are simply further interpretations thereof.

The above might sound horribly idealist, and effectively a denial of any reality accessible through intelligent and reasonable inquiry. And it would be, if I did not add the following caveat: not all interpretations are born equal. We can adjudicate between them through considering to what extent they are warranted by the data. The point is that this is not an one-to-one relationship. One does not ask "Is this datum real?" but rather "Given this set of data what might we say about the real?", wherein the real is understood to be a particular aspect of a past state of the world. Put otherwise, we should set out to verify hypotheses rather than data.

That leads to affirmation that I do indeed think it impossible that the criteria of authenticity can be refashioned, but that this impossibility has nothing to do with the criteria but rather to do with the notion of authenticity. It locates reality at the level of data rather than the world that produced the data. It locates verification at the level of data rather than at the level of hypotheses intended to account for the data. It quite simply puts the cart before the horse. That does not mean of course that the reasoning that underlies the heuristic development of specific criteria cannot be employed to consider other matters; it simply means that a quixotic fixation on the authenticity of data will not yield the truth that we're looking for.

Jonathan, thanks for this response. I can't tell whether you think you're disagreeing with me here, or perhaps pushing further, but I have argued essentially the exact same points, and specifically my argument has always been that the criteria fail to deliver because what they try to deliver--"authenticity" as they understand it--is not available. Since "authentic" material is not available in the gospels, it means that historians must alter how they do their task. So, I think we are in complete agreement here.

BTW, my and Hooker's point is the opposite of what you say here. The traditional criteria as developed by Kaesemann et al. *were* designed to authenticate tradition historically, but this is precisely what they aren't able to do, in our opinions. They are able perhaps to sift tradition, but this is, in her language, functioning as a literary tool and not a historical one.

Two cents, FWIW, YMMV, IMHO and all that … but I do not understand Anthony’s stated agreement with Dr. Bernier, or why he thinks he and Dr. Bernier in some way stand against Chris and Dr. Hooker.

In the post cited by Anthony, Dr. Bernier writes that the statements in the gospels – ALL of them – are comparable to the shadows in Plato’s cave: the Gospel statements are not “historical events” but are “consequences of events.” Dr. B describes this difference between shadow and substance in terms of a distinction between “data” and “facts.” Following the work of Bernard Lonergan (of which I am blissfully unaware), Dr. B describes the process of theology as requiring data gathering and interpretation. The data gathered must be interpreted to get to the “facts.” “Facts” are what we get when we correctly “interpret” “data.”

Here, I hit a problem, because I don’t think it’s possible to gather facts without interpreting them. There’s no moment when anyone is an objective fact-gatherer – we’re incapable of understanding anything without interpreting. And the person who’s most responsible for teaching me that there’s no such thing as data gathering divorced from interpretation? Ahem. That would be Anthony. Which is why I find Anthony’s expressed agreement with Dr. B most surprising.

Let’s dive a little deeper. Dr. Bernier acknowledges that there has to be some relationship between data and fact, just as there should always be a relationship between data and object. We have a struggle with history, because there’s rarely a one-on-one relationship between historical data and historical fact: a single historical fact tends to generate a lot of historical data, “all of which when considered today can potentially lead to the intelligent and reasonable apprehension” of a historical fact. Here, Dr. B sounds a lot like Anthony to me. But I don’t think Chris would disagree with an approach that considers all the data!

I now come to the question of criteria of authenticity, and it’s here that I’m not sure where anyone stands. If we follow Dr. B’s distinguished-but-related data and fact, then it’s clear he places great importance on the interpretation required to move from one to the other. How does one make this move? Are there practices we can follow, with due caution and humility? I think there must be, because there are people around we call “historians,” and these historians seem to recognize some kinship between what they each do individually. Is it overblown to call these practices something as objective and scientific-sounding as “criteria”? Perhaps. Does talk of “authenticity” wrongly blur the distinction between data and fact, promising a kind of certainty about given facts that we cannot achieve? Probably. Is this the problem then, that the criteria of authenticity are in need of a kind of marketing make-over, and that they’d be perfectly acceptable if we called them something like “suggested guidelines for plausibility”? My sense is that Chris wants nothing to do with these criteria, no matter what we call them, and that Anthony is willing to carefully use some of these criteria for purposes other than authentication, but honestly I’m not sure about this.

Even if I better understood the argument between Chris and Anthony, I don’t think I’d know what side Dr. B would take in this argument. Dr. B’s strong statements about the criteria of authenticity seem to me to go no further than saying that data are not facts, and that data cannot be transformed into facts by means of criteria. OK. I’m pretty sure that Chris and Anthony both agree here. Dr. B also seems to be saying that interpretation is important, and again, no one should disagree. Is there a role that the old criteria (rebranded or otherwise properly understood) might play in Dr. B’s interpretative process? I don’t know; I don’t think he’s said, one way or the other.

I thought that I had written a reply to this post but apparently not. I will respond very quickly to clarify my understanding of how data relates to facts by way of an example. Let us take a fact, well-established and really incontrovertible: Jesus was Jewish. Now, the interesting thing is that you will not find the statement "Jesus was Jewish" anywhere in the sources. This has to be inferred from a whole wealth of data, which cumulatively can leave no doubt on the matter. If even the most basic and incontrovertible fact cannot be gleaned directly from the sources than how likely is it that more controvertible facts could? Now, of course, it might conceivably be the case that through such an inferential process we come to the conclusion that Jesus must have uttered words or committed acts very similar to those recorded in a particular passage, but one gets there not by showing that the account is "authentic," which necessarily supposes that the account is functionally identical to the event. It is that functional identification that I reject as ontically untenable.

I don't think your definition of "authentic" is itself authentic! I think that historians who use the criteria of authenticity consider "authentic" to represent a relatively undistorted (and presumably early) Jesus tradition that has not been intentionally invented. There's nothing to say that these early and relatively unadulterated traditions are (or are thought to be) "functionally identical to the event."

In addition, I don't think that good historians try to do more than to say that an account is probably authentic.

I can try to quote you some Bart Ehrman or maybe John Meier on this if you like.

There are huge problems with "authenticity" as a concept. But the functional identity you describe is, I think, a straw man.

Thank you for your response, Larry. Of course I know that Ehrman and Meier would not define "authentic" as "functionally identical to the event." That is why I use the qualifier "functional." My argument is that *in practice* historiographers of authenticity suppose that the gospels are a collection of events. The very language of distortion confirms this intuition. It leads to the question "Undistorted relatively from what?" Presumably the answer is "The event." Indeed, it must be, or else the judgment that it is relatively undistorted could not lead to the judgment that it is authentic, which is to say that it can be thought to be an event from Jesus' life. So, the judgment of authenticity must mean "Relatively undistorted from the event." If any modification of my initial formulation is required it would be say that the authenticity model supposes the gospels to be collections of "functionally potential events."

Another way of putting much the same idea is that the task of the criteria was to convert traditions into events. And if it isn't such then on its own terms I cannot see how it could ever do history.

This is my third attempt at a reply. Technical difficulties now demand that my rejoinder will be brief. I will have to say more another time. My point was very limited in scope: I do not find convincing arguments that a "tool" must be ultimately measured by its original design if it proves to have utility elsewhere. Moreover, I am not claiming that Jonathan is saying anything more than this: "the criteria did not fail because they did not measure up to the task for which they were formulated but because more fundamentally that task did not measure up to intelligence or reason." -anthony

I should have probably said "the criteria did not ONLY because they did not measure up to the task..." That is, I think that the criteria of authenticity qua criteria of authenticity failed because of the difficulties intrinsic to the notion of authenticity. That does not mean that notions such as, for instance, embarrassment or multiple attestation, might not be used to good effect in relation to other matters, just that they will not be thus used here.

I will add briefly here that I agree with Bernier on this. I have used the concept of embarrassment in approaching the historical Jesus, but not the criterion of embarrassment. That is, that early Christians could have been embarrassed about something is useful information, but it doesn't allow us to skip straight to the historical Jesus.

I think that the key word here is "straight," or as I would prefer, "unmediated." Best I can tell the language of authenticity supposes an inverse relationship between "authenticity" on the one hand and "mediation" on the other. To say something is "authentic" is to say that it is sufficiently unmediated as to be treated as a historical event. Against this I would simply echo the point that yourself and others have made time and again: that the gospels present to us ancient interpretations of Jesus' life and that we learn about the historical Jesus not despite but rather through these interpretations.

Inasmuch as the concept of "embarrassment," for instance, is a concept that is employed for the purposes of the Criteria Approach, would you say that the Criteria as an Approach is wholly derivative of Form Criticism?-JGB

No, I wouldn't say that the criteria approach is "wholly" derivative of form criticism because certain elements of it predate form criticism. But, it is derivative of form criticism or, as I've said elsewhere, "indebted" to form criticism. The criteria approach, by which I refer to the emergence of criteria of authenticity as a formal methodology in Jesus studies in the work especially of Perrin and Fuller, building upon Kaesemann, explicitly assumes form criticism's understanding of the nature of the gospel tradition.

If I am not mistaken, all that Dr. B intends to say by this last statement, as rehearsed by Dr. Le Donne, is that the very question "Is such and such a tradition historically accurate?" is altogether the wrong question. That was the question (asked of each tradition) that the criteria approach had in mind. He is really tacitly assuming the Collingwoodian historical procedure, that one should not ask the yes or no question of so-called 'ready-made statements,' but rather what any given historical author was doing—what he had in mind—why he uses such statements in the first place.

Criteria are not wrong because they fail to obtain (even if they do fail to obtain!) but because the very approach (i.e., of asking, "Is this true?" "Is this false?" of pericope x) is altogether the wrong way of going about doing history.

He doesn't have to disagree with Drs. Keith and Hooker, although his point seems to preclude any need to go as far as Drs. K and H have gone.-JGB

Thank for your response, "Anonymous." (For the record, folks, "Anonymous" is in fact John Garrett Bolton--hence the "JGB" signature at the bottom--a graduate school in McMaster University's Department of Religious Studies). Yes, you pretty much nail what I'm getting at. It's worth mentioning that Lonergan was deeply influenced by Collingwood in the particular area of historical research, such that a historian works within a Lonerganian framework one is often effectively working within a Collingwoodian one as well. I see L. as offering a series of correctives to C., necessary because C.'s "Idea of History"--his major work in the philosophy of history--was unfinished at the time of his death and published posthumously. So it's a bit rough and underdeveloped in places. Plus L. has to monkey with it a bit to get it to fit fully into his preexisting Thomistic framework.

JGB, I'm not sure how Hooker and I have become the extremists in your schema, since Bernier has landed essentially exactly where we Hooker and I land as well. The only difference, so far as I can tell, is that he is approaching the complex of issues from the perspective of philosophies of history and I arrived there from the perspective of sociology of memory and Hooker landed there basically via common sense. If anything, Bernier is dealing with a more global approach that takes on board important epistemological points as well, and thus going further than me and Hooker. I get the impression that you have perhaps read only my chapter in Demise of Authenticity, because I make the argument that the main problem is with the criteria's understanding of how to do history in a ZNW article, expanded in chapter two of Jesus' Literacy, as well as Jesus against the Scribal Elite (it features prominently in my forthcoming Early Christianity two-part article as well, where I note the similarities occurring from a number of different methodological approaches in what I term the "new historiography" in Jesus studies--social memory is one way in, Longergan or Collingwood another, Droysen another, oral tradition another, etc., etc.). In other words, my argument has never been simply that they fail in practice, but that they fail because they're incapable of succeeding and this inability is due precisely to a broken understanding of how to go about the historian's task. (Thus, I have sections in chapter two of Jesus' literacy on how the criteria define the historian's task and how the memory approach I propose defines it.) I have also, in print, stated that the criteria may well be able to function in other ways (and Hooker also stated that they do work as literary tools), but that we should acknowledge that they cannot deliver the primary thing they were designed to deliver and for which they are used in historical Jesus studies.

The “distance” that we are talking about when you refer to my supposed assignment of you and Hooker as “extremists” (I’m taking that it was derived from my comment about not going “as far as” you and Hooker) is only a metaphorical distance (which I suspect, you well understand). It is one, however, that should not lead anyone in thinking that—I think—you are “extremists.” I actually think that criteria as heuristics (or properly, “indices,” as B. Meyer would call them) do work in a very limited way (somewhat in the way they were originally intended) within what will have to be a broader philosophy of historical method. (It is unclear to me whether this will meet with opposition from you, since you think both that they may be used for other ways and that they fail to obtain in the manner for which they are designed. Your example of embarrassment in the post above is precisely how I would use them.) In fact, I would probably think that Dr. Bernier is more extremist than you or M. Hooker, as well.

All I meant, however, is that if one assumes the criteria procedure at all, one must also assume that asking the “yes or no” question (a Collingwoodianism) is legitimate: “yes,” such and such a tradition is historical, authentic, etc.; or “no,” such and such a tradition is not historical, etc. But with Dr. B, he is simply saying—as Collingwood did (from his analysis of Lonergan)—that one (if he or she is *doing* history properly) cannot not ask this type of question of historical statements, traditions, whatever. Thus, in a certain sense, one must stop “short” and not “go to the point of” asking that sort of yes or no question—as for instance, persons who subscribe to the criteria position do. This is meant only as a way of speaking. My assumption, which may have been wrong here, is that you and M. Hooker think that the yes or no question is legitimate (as far as I am concerned, it is). There are places in your work where I think that you do, and this may be the reason there is perhaps confusion on my part.-JGB

I'll let John speak for himself regarding his interpretation of your position and Dr. Hooker's. I too am fascinated however by the convergence among methodological discussions coming from a plethora of diverse philosophical backgrounds. That tells me that maybe, just maybe, we're on to something.

John, thanks for that clarification very much and for your contribution to this post (and the blog in general). I see what you mean now. I think you've read me rightly, though I would say I might be a little closer to Bernier than you think. To be precise, I do think that we can (and should) ask historical questions. But, in my opinion, the sources *themselves* do not answer those questions for us (and so running litmus tests on the sources in isolation, as do the criteria, does not get us very far at all and certainly not where we'd like to go). They are questions that we can answer only in narrating various hypotheses for the actual past that can account for the sources we have, which means that we can only ever speculate about "what really happened," even if we can speculate with greater confidence in some instances than we can in other instances. As I've said in several places, for me, the crucial issue is whether we approach the actual past by eliminating the interpretations of the early Christians (as do the criteria) or by accounting for the interpretations of the early Christians. The role of early Christian interpretation is in the historiographical task is where I see these methods diverging strongly. That's my take anyway.

This is a little off topic but I'm wondering if you guys have discussed the use of Bayes theorem in historical Jesus studies? I know Carrier recently devoted a 2 volume book on this and applied it to HJ. Do you have any thoughts on BT or Carrier's book? I'm not a mythicist but curious if this is a legit methodology.

I do not feel as if I have sufficient grounding in Bayesian thought to deal with this. I would add that I incline towards more hermeneutical ways of approaching historiography, such that the assignation of statistical probabilities just doesn't fit my temperate. I have no objection in principle to explorations in this area, however. As regards "mythicism," the problem with that entire discourse is that it masquerades as a legitimate position among qualified specialists when in fact it is not. I think it safe to say that the theory that Jesus did not exist is to New Testament scholarship as the theory that the world was created in six days is to geology.

Chris and Anthony - I have a quick question for the both of you, since I'm interested in hearing your opinions on the matter.

If we consider question asking to be a part of the historian's task (the essential part for Collingwood, and at least a critical part for Lonergan), do you think that it is sometimes appropriate to utilize the criteria as something like 'indices' (cf. Ben Meyer) in order to help the historian to better understand the data? Is it sometimes appropriate to ask questions like 'what independent sources does this appear in?' or 'is this unique to the Jesus tradition?' if it is relevant to the circumstances of the investigation? Do the basic foundational issues that the criteria were based on sometimes produce historical questions worth asking? Or are they entirely broken and not worth recovering?

I know I've had a little bit of contact with Chris about this issue before, but I'm interested in hearing what Anthony thinks as well. Meyer was definitely a product of his time, but it is nevertheless intriguing to me that he found a place for the 'criteria' (though he really didn't use them as 'criteria' at all) within a Lonerganian critical-realist framework.

(Apologies for coming late to the party - I tried posting this a few days back but had trouble signing in with my account).

Jordan, I'm now finally back in the office and able to give this and John's question below a better response. In short, John is correct that my real problem is with the Kaesemann-Fuller-Perrin usage of the criteria. They may indeed be useful in asking general questions about the DATA, as you note, Jordan. I emphasize "data," though, in order to underscore that we're here dealing with the tradition and have not yet talked about how we move from the tradition to discussing the historical Jesus. In my mind, the criteria of authenticity are utterly broken insofar as they cannot actually make that move from the tradition to the historical Jesus due to their faulty understanding of the tradition. They were originally designed in order to make that move, however, and I think there's been a general failure to note that other usages of the criteria have essentially abandoned their original design while claiming their status as long-established tools of the trade. This would be the case, in my opinion, for Meyer, Theissen/Winter, Meier, Wright, Le Donne, etc. At least in the case of Meyer, Theissen/Winter, and Le Donne especially, I think their sophisticated historiographical approaches to the tradition have moved beyond the designed function of the criteria, outrun the criteria in essence, and are ultimately at odds with that designed function. Now, Anthony likes to throw in my face that developments of method are not uncommon and that's not necessarily a strike against the method itself. True enough, though he's never produced for me another such shift in the usage of method in Jesus studies, but here's my important point: the "development" or "shift" toward other purposes that occurs is AWAY from discussing the historical Jesus and instead focusing on the tradition. So, if we want to keep these as tradition-critical tools that are useful in some capacity there, so be it. But this is not historical Jesus work; it is tradition criticism. I'll say once more that this was exactly Hooker's problem as well. One last comment--in Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, at the end of my chapter I state explicitly that recovering elements of the criteria's logical structures for usage in other methods is one path of future research (47-48). So I've always stated that some aspect of the criteria may have a future. But as a tool in approaching the historical Jesus, I think they are broken beyond repair.

I interpret Jordan Ryan’s question to be somewhat similar to one I composed, but for some reason didn’t take. Thus I will post it here below.

Would you say Prof. Keith that the Criteria of Authenticity Approach with which you have difficulty is of the Perrin-and-Fuller,-building-upon-Käsemann,-which- assumes-form-criticism's-understanding-of-the-nature-of-the-gospel-tradition variety? Would this leave room for other Criteria Approaches?

It seems in some cases that you are prepared to use the *concept* of embarrassment (post above), although not the “criteria” of embarrassment, which I take it in your opinion presumes one’s ability “to skip straight to the historical Jesus.” Would you be prepared to use the concepts of dissimilarity, of multiple attestation, etc., in the same way as embarrassment, such that, while these “concepts” obtain, none of them really allows one to get to the historical Jesus, but does offer up a degree of historical probability?

As Jordan is getting at, this seems to me to be close to what Ben Meyer had in mind with his “indices.” It also seems to me to be somewhat sympathetic to J. P. Meier’s version of the criteria approach, which are to “produce judgments that are only more or less probable; certainty is rarely to be had” (167, Marginal Jew, v. 1) (this seems to be consistent with your statement, Chris Keith, that “it doesn't allow us to skip straight to the historical Jesus.”) The function of the criteria according to Meier is “to pass from the merely possible to the really probable, to inspect various probabilities, and to decide which candidate is most probable” (167–168). He remarks that the “The criteria cannot hope to do more” (168). Lastly, and I think most importantly for Meier’s method is the statement that “No criterion can be used mechanically and in isolation; a convergence of different criteria is the best indicator of historicity” (175).

Any clarification would be appreciated (from either Prof. Keith or Prof. Le Donne).-JGB

For clarity's sake - what I'm getting at is similar to what John is saying and the way Meyer used the criteria, but also different in the sense that I am suggesting that the 'criteria' need not only be used for determining 'historicity' or 'authenticity,' but might be applied as questions that could potentially help the historian to understand the nature of the data.

Jordan and John, you've asked good questions that I can't answer in full now (honestly) because of time. I'm still on vacation with my family but promise to come back in a day or so and answer. Thanks for making this is a great and productive thread.

Jordan, (So that at least I understand here) would you mind giving an example of what you have in mind when you say that "[criteria] might be applied as questions that could potentially help the historian to understand the nature of the data." What precisely might this look like? (I'm interested in your question as well, but unclear exactly about what you mean.)-JGB

I mean precisely what I said above: "Is it sometimes appropriate to ask questions like 'what independent sources does this appear in?' or 'is this unique to the Jesus tradition?' if it is relevant to the circumstances of the investigation?" In other words - can these questions help us understand the data, since asking questions like this might reveal something to us about the data? Determination of authenticity might not be the only reason to ask, for example, 'is this unique to Jesus?' Meyer wanted to use them to establish the evidence, but I wonder if there is a use for them beyond that, even in a post-authenticity historiographical world.

So, if I am understanding you correctly, Jordan, by asking ‘What independent sources does this [tradition] appear in?’ the criterion here considered or being drawn upon is “Multiple Attestation,”(?) and when you ask ‘Is this unique to . . .?’ the criterion is “Dissimilarity” (?) Have I grasped you?

(Just to understand you more), let us assume for our purposes that the answer is ‘yes’ with regard to our hypothetical traditions. What have we then “understood” about the “data”? What are you supposing it might “reveal” to us? Or what is reason to ask these questions if not to discern authenticity/reliability/historicity? (Is this something you’ve considered, or what do you have in mind?)-JGB

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James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

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